Various media outlets are breathlessly documenting areas of excessive heat around portions of the globe. On Monday, The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang emphatically proclaimed: “Record heat put thousands of Californians in the dark Friday. Scientists predicted this from climate change.” In fairness, nonscientists probably did too — and without man-made global warming dogma.

Last week, the same group informed us that UCLA had reached an impressive 111°F (a record by two degrees). More records were established at Hollywood Burbank (114°) and Van Nuys (117°) Airports and in Ramona (117°), Santa Ana (114°) and Riverside (118°, a tie).

Meanwhile, the Capital Weather Gang also revealed last week that “the planet’s hottest continent probably just endured its hottest weather ever reliably measured.” According to the report, “An Algerian city soared to 124.3 degrees (51.3 Celsius) Thursday, adding to the onslaught of records for extreme heat set around the planet during the past 10 days. … Its 124.3-degree temperature surpassed Africa’s previous highest reliable temperature measurement of 123.3 degrees (50.7 Celsius) set July 13, 1961, in Morocco.”

This might come as news to some people considering that the new record is significantly below the now-defunct one. As meteorologist and Patriot Post contributor Joe Bastardi explains in a recent column, “Old guys like me were taught that the world’s hottest recorded temperature — 136°F — occurred in Libya in 1922. That got thrown out in 2012. A bunch of other 130°-plus recordings got thrown out too.” Perhaps those previous recordings were, as alarmists claim, bogus and unreliable. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a very superficial view of basically the entire first half of the 20th century, and the agency is continuously modifying old data. Consequentially, global warming artificially appears more pronounced as old temperature records are cooled. Furthermore, NOAA’s adjustments can’t be any more reliable than the data they throw out. Clearly, something doesn’t smell right.

But even if we assume that portions of the globe are being baked with unprecedented heat, Bastardi raises an interesting question: “If it’s so darn hot, why is the global temperature only .118°C above average?” He adds: “There has to be — and there is — plenty of compensating cold to keep the average close. Not only that, but if we take the period since the Super Niño of ‘97-'98, we find this July is on pace to be the 12th warmest out of the last 21 against the 30-year mean ending in 2010. So it’s actually one of the cooler Julys so far this century.” When it comes to global warming rhetoric, perspective is awfully refreshing.